Sunday, February 15, 2009

"Dizzy Dishes" probably wouldn't have become a notable cartoon except for one little thing, the first appearance of a character who would become the one and only Betty Boop. You should know by now that Miss Boop's cartoons are in the public domain and thus legally available on YouTube...so enjoy "Dizzy Dishes"

The short focuses on a waiter at a club of some sort. There are a few good gags and it is certainly in the style of the Fleischer studio, but nothing spectacular happens. Until...midway though the main character, and the audience for that matter, becomes completely enthralled with the boop-boop-ee-dooing singer. She's not quite herself yet, besides the fact that the animation is pretty crude she's also sort of a dog like creature (with those strange floppy ears). Still, notice how her sequence just stands out from the rest of the film. It's also interesting to see some other gags in this sequence that would pop up in cartoons for ages to come...specifically the waiter's heart jumping out of his chest as he watches Betty. It's the Betty sequence that makes this short enjoyable and it's easy to see why the Fleischers realized they had a new star on their hands.